September 3, 2008

"The picture (...) raises doubts as to whether Russia even today can remotely be considered a civilized country".

David Settler

I really disagree with Putin and Russian... how should I call it: Politics? Not really, since it is more Barbarism than Politics.

The last weeks I've been concerned with the crisis in Caucasus, and Putin's carte blanche to act as he does, i.e. with impunity.

Today is the 4th anniversary of the massacre in Beslan's school. Just basic maths: In order to rescue (sic) around 1,100 hostages being taken by 32 terrorists, the overcome of Putin's operation is: at least 385 dead persons, and around 785 injured. It seems to be that around 80% of the people died because of Russian overpower (this reminds me as well of those other hostages in the Moscow teathre in 2002). The expert David Settler explains it:

The most powerful confirmation, however, came in a report released by Yuri Saveliev, a member of the federal parliamentary investigative commission and a highly regarded expert on the physics of combustion. Saveliev, a Duma deputy, was the only such expert on the commission. Saveliev concluded that the first explosion was the result of a shot from a flamethrower from a fifth story building on a street near the school at 13:03. The second explosion came after 22 seconds and was caused by a high explosive fragmentation grenade with a dynamite equivalent of 6.1 kilograms shot from another five story building on the same street. The explosions, according to Saveliev, caused a catastrophic fire and the collapse of the roof of the school gymnasium that led to the deaths of the majority of the hostages. The order to put out the fire did not come for two hours, leading to a situation in which hostages who could have been saved were burned alive.

According to Saveliev, another 106 to 110 hostages then died after terrorists moved them from the burning gym to the school’s cafeteria, which came under heavy fire from security forces using flamethrowers, rocket launchers and tanks. His analysis, in this way, supports the view of human rights activists that at least 80 per cent of the hostages were killed by indiscriminate Russian fire.

(...) The sad reality is that 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the role of the individual in Russia has not changed. He is seen as a means to an end not an end in himself.